Drugs: Prisons

Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many prisoners have participated in intensive drug treatment programmes in the last five years; and what assessment he has made of their effectiveness of such programmes.

Maria Eagle: I have been asked to reply.
	The following table provides figures for prisoners recorded as entering accredited drug treatment programmes in 2008-09, the latest period for which figures are available. These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.
	All accredited drug treatment programmes available in prisons are based on good practice found in the community. Evaluations to date specifically of prison drug treatment programmes run in England and Wales are limited and have not always met the highest standards of methodological robustness. However, they suggest that accredited programmes can reduce re-offending (Ramsay, M. (ed) (2003) Prisoners' Drug Use and Treatment: Seven Research Studies. Home Office Research Study 267. London: Home Office). International evidence supports these findings.
	The Prison Drug Treatment Strategy Review Group has been established to oversee a complex piece of work to take forward the recommendations of PricewaterhouseCoopers' 2007 report on prison drug treatment. An assessment of the available evidence base for drug treatment in prisons will form a part of this review. A report with recommendations will be produced by the end of March 2009.
	
		
			  Intervention type (2008-09)  Intervention starts (rounded to nearest 10) 
			 12-Step Programme 850 
			 Therapeutic Communities 260 
			 Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) programmes(1) 9,650 
			  of which:  
			 Short Duration Programme (5,550) 
			 Total 10,760 
			 (1) Prisons have in place a range of CBT accredited drug programmes, including: PASRO (Prisoner Addressing Substance Related Offending), STOP (Substance Treatment and Offending Programme), FOCUS (high security prisons only) and the Short Duration Programme